Nashville at Dallas

Stars take advantage of power plays to defeat Predators

CBS SportsLine.com wire reports

Dec. 29, 2006

DALLAS -- The Dallas Stars, minus three of
their top goal-scoring threats, got a much-needed offensive spark from
right wing Antti Miettinen.

Miettinen had a career-high two goals, both on power plays, and Jere Lehtinen scored the go-ahead goal on a power play to help the
Stars beat the Central Division-leading Nashville
Predators 4-1 on Friday night.

With the game tied at 1, the Stars were skating 5-on-3 when Sergei Zubov set up Lehtinen for his ninth goal of the season and
199th of his career at 7:02 of the third.

Another Nashville penalty resulted in another two-man advantage for
Dallas. Miettinen, scoreless in his previous 10 games, struck 32 seconds
after Lehtinen, collecting his eighth of the season from close range to
give Dallas a 3-1 edge.

"What's made it tough is that I haven't been playing well overall,"
Miettinen said. "It's a relief. Maybe this will break the shell that's
around me."

Marty Turco made 19 saves, and Patrik
Stefan added an empty-net goal with 36 seconds left for the
Stars, who've won five of their last seven games.

Stars coach Dave Tippett said a key to the victory was capitalizing on
the 5-on-3s.

"It's an opportunity in a game to seize momentum," Tippett said. "Our
5-on-3 got us a couple of goals. That was the turning point right there."

Sitting out for the Stars were left wing and captain Brenden Morrow (severed tendons in his right wrist), center Eric Lindros (upper body injury), and their offensive catalyst,
center Mike Modano (hip flexor/groin
injury), who missed his 12th straight game. Dallas is 7-5 since Modano's
injury.

"With the guys we have out, we have to win one-on-one battles and be
hard to play against," Miettinen said.

Nashville, 2-14 in Dallas, was whistled for five penalties in the third
period. Predators coach Barry Trotz didn't have a problem with any of
the calls.

"We took too many bad penalties," Trotz. "When I look at the replays of
those penalties, they were non-working penalties. We deserved what we
got. Dallas had some of their big guys out and they had other guys step
up."

Friday night marked the Texas return of Predators center Jason Arnott, who played the previous three-plus seasons for the
Stars. Arnott, signed by Nashville as a free agent in the offseason, was
injured and did not skate in the teams' only other meeting this season
on Nov. 22, a 1-0 Dallas victory.

Arnott had three goals in his previous three games for the Predators,
but went scoreless against his former team.